Aikido Security vs F5 Advanced WAF comparison

Aikido Security and F5 are both solutions in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category. Aikido Security is ranked #79, while F5 is ranked #2 with an average rating of 8.4. Aikido Security holds a 0.2% mindshare in WAF, compared to F5’s 7.1% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Aikido Security users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 98% of F5 users who would recommend it.

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Executive Summary

We performed a comparison between Aikido Security and F5 Advanced WAF based on real PeerSpot user reviews.

Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet, F5, Imperva and others in Web Application Firewall (WAF).

To learn more, read our detailed Web Application Firewall (WAF) Report (Updated: March 2026).

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

March 2026

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Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare Web Application ...

Mindshare comparison

As of April 2026, in the Web Application Firewall (WAF) category, the mindshare of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is 5.4%, down from 6.9% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Aikido Security is 0.2%. The mindshare of F5 Advanced WAF is 7.1%, down from 10.3% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Web Application Firewall (WAF) Mindshare Distribution
Product	Mindshare (%)
F5 Advanced WAF	7.1%
Cloudflare Web Application Firewall	5.4%
Aikido Security	0.2%
Other	87.3%

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

Featured Reviews

Dean Barisic

CTO at PlayNirvana

Advanced security reporting has protected high-traffic betting platforms from constant attacks

I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we have a dedicated IT team for that, and I'm not involved with Cloudflare much anymore. But if I were to compare them to F5, I would like to see more features that F5 offers. F5 has an option to bring the whole infrastructure, the whole WAF and all their packages, Bot Management, and everything else on your infrastructure. You need to install certain services from their side, and then you can choose if you would like requests to hit your servers immediately or if requests need to be proxied through F5 backbone. That would be a nice addition because we have 90% of the traffic as legit traffic coming from whitelisted servers. If it comes from whitelisted servers, I don't need to go every request through the backbone; I could easily just IP whitelist everything. Then I could maybe have Bot Management on my infrastructure that drastically reduces the price of Cloudflare. I would like to see Push CDN more improved in the next release of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. And maybe something similar to Pushpin that Fastly has, which is an option where you can push messages that then can be scaled globally over the network. From our perspective, if we have a listener that listens for stock updates, I would just need to have one processor that pushes those updates to the Cloudflare API, and then Cloudflare would broadcast that message to all listeners. Cloudflare will check the order of the message, and if you, as a customer, are not connected or have some kind of network issue, when you reconnect, you will receive the latest state and missing updates.

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Francisco Javier Vergara

SecOps Engineer at IriusRisk

Automated scans have streamlined vulnerability workflows and now provide clear daily risk reports

In my experience, the best feature Aikido Security offers is its ease of use, as it was really easy to onboard our engineers into adopting Aikido Security in their day-to-day lives. The reason onboarding my engineers with Aikido Security was so easy is the user interface. The first thing our engineers see when they log in is a feed of vulnerabilities that their own repositories are affected by, which helps them focus only on their work at hand. I would also like to add that the integrations part is really useful, as all of the integrations we have added so far, mainly Jira, IDE, and API integrations, are really easy to use because they are backed by strong documentation that they maintain daily. This is a commendation to them. Aikido Security has positively impacted our organization by helping us reduce the complexity in managing our vulnerabilities. We now have a single source of truth with Aikido Security, allowing us to get rid of manually maintained automations that we previously had.

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Kallamuddin Ansari

Cyber Security Consultant at ProTechmanize

Application security has protected critical banking services while policy learning minimizes false blocks

F5 Advanced WAF performs well overall, but I have noticed some points that could enhance the solution. Initially, policy tuning could be simpler, as while the learning engine is powerful, initial tuning still requires experienced engineers, which can be challenging for new teams due to the complexity of options and parameters. A more guided and simple tuning workflow would help reduce the learning curve. Additionally, tighter native integration with SIEM or SOAR tools would simplify correlation and investigations for security teams, although log exports are available. Overall, these are not blockers, merely enhancement opportunities, and once tuned, F5 Advanced WAF is very stable and reliable; improving usability, reporting, and onboarding would make it even more effective for larger environments.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"It protects web applications efficiently."

"The stability of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall deserves a perfect 10 out of 10."

"It's pretty convenient and pretty easy to set up and run. And then kind of for static content, it also offers caching."

"The most valuable part of the solution for us overall is exactly that it is a Software-as-a-Service product."

"The initial setup process is simple."

"We like that there's load balancing, firewall capabilities, DDoS protection, et cetera, all covered by Cloudflare."

"This solution does a good job of preventing web application attacks, SQL injections, and cross-site scripting attacks."

"In general, it's a very good product: the solution is very stable, the performance is great, the product offers very good scalability, the pricing is very reasonable, the installation is very straightforward and quite simple, and technical support has a very fast response time and is helpful."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pros

"Since switching to Aikido Security, I have noticed a positive impact on my team's productivity with measurable results, as we now have measurements."

"The solution uses AI to protect against botnet attacks."

"One of the most valuable features is the Local Traffic Manager."

"This solution is an enterprise-class firewall that provides both load-balancing and security."

"We can monitor IP locations, but we have constraints from each country. It has a replication feature. Licenses can be shared, taking turns with each license."

"We can monitor IP locations, but we have constraints from each country, it has a replication feature, and licenses can be shared, taking turns with each license."

"The product is very stable; it is a PCI company, so there are 10,000-12,000 people using the solution, and all of the internet payments are behind the ASM for the F5."

"Very easy to implement and works well."

"The solution's most valuable features include application DDoS protection, bot blocking, and HTTP header verifications."

More F5 Advanced WAF pros

Cons

"Its stability could be better."

"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall should improve visibility for a customer."

"The user interface is very simple and straightforward, but users need knowledge about DNS to accomplish tasks."

"It would be ideal if the solution offered better log integration and more integration with different platforms."

"The accuracy of the Cloudflare Web Application Firewall could be improved by reducing the number of false-negative alerts."

"The rate limiting functionality could be enhanced, as we find it somewhat limited."

"The learning curve was steep initially."

"The blocked logs are difficult to read at times."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall cons

"I think Aikido Security could be improved by addressing its Jira integration, which I feel needs a bit of work."

"F5 Advanced WAF sells perpetual licenses as perpetual assets during sales without informing me that support ends after a few years."

"The Sandbox integration feature could be improved."

"The contextual-based component needs a lot of help to catch up with the next-gen products."

"What needs to be improved in this solution is the accuracy of its automatic learning feature, because we frequently have to help it manually, particularly to stop blocking things it isn't supposed to block."

"I would like to see a better interface and better documentation compatibility with other products."

"Nevertheless, F5 products are generally considered to be hard to deploy."

"I think the solution is already being phased out."

"The reporting portion of F5 Advance WAF is not great. They need to work out something better, as it is very basic. You only see the top IPs, I think there is more they can offer."

More F5 Advanced WAF cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing model is very straightforward compared to the competition. You just pay per month for the product and usage."

"Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is more affordable than other solutions."

"We pay $210 per month for CloudFlare WAF."

"The solution's pricing option needs to be more transparent for enterprise clients."

"The solution is expensive."

"The annual licensing fee is $10,000 USD."

"It is not too pricey."

"What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing? I believe the pricing is not the best, but it's reasonable and acceptable. We also use the McAfee system in parallel. In terms of pricing, its okay - not great, but not bad either. It falls in the middle, which is acceptable. In terms of support licensing, last time, we were searching for a solution, and we considered products from resellers rather than directly from the cloud provider. However, the pricing we encountered was exceptionally high. As a result, we are inclined to select support from the reseller."

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall pricing and cost advice

Information not available

"Its price is fair. We have done a couple of deals where they were able to give some kind of discount to the customers. The price was initially high for the customers, but after a couple of negotiations, it came within their budget. They were happy with that."

"There are various plans available for Fortinet FortiWeb Cloud WAF as a Service, including a trial version."

"The way we deployed it, I would rate it a four out of five in terms of pricing."

"F5 Advanced WAF pricing structure should be adjusted to meet the need of small to medium-sized companies."

"It is a little bit costly, but it has all the features that are required."

"As far as the pricing of F5 Advanced WAF I would rate it a four out of five depending on what features I am looking for. Imperva is more expensive."

"The pricing for F5 Advanced WAF is comparable to a Rolls-Royce. Its price is a bit high when you compare it with other vendors. F5 Advanced WAF is a bit expensive. The customer was on a three-year plan and it was around $560,000."

"It is expensive. Its price should be better. Its licensing is on a yearly basis. Its licensing is also based on the model. There are no additional costs."

More F5 Advanced WAF pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Construction Company

19%

Computer Software Company

Comms Service Provider

Manufacturing Company

Comms Service Provider

12%

Manufacturing Company

10%

Construction Company

10%

Financial Services Firm

14%

Computer Software Company

11%

Government

Manufacturing Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	16
Midsize Enterprise	6
Large Enterprise	6

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	26
Midsize Enterprise	15
Large Enterprise	31

Questions from the Community

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

The price of Cloudflare Web Application Firewall is reasonable.

See all answers

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

I don't see room for improvement to Cloudflare Web Application Firewall. One thing I don't know much about because we...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Web Application Firewall?

We are using Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's advanced reporting and analytics tools with their Zero Trust, so e...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Aikido Security?

I think Aikido Security could be improved by addressing its Jira integration, which I feel needs a bit of work. For m...

See all answers

What is your primary use case for Aikido Security?

My main use case for Aikido Security is to utilize it as part of our vulnerability management program, where we also ...

See all answers

What advice do you have for others considering Aikido Security?

Since switching to Aikido Security, I have noticed a positive impact on my team's productivity with measurable result...

See all answers

What do you like most about F5 Advanced WAF?

It's a fairly easy-to-use and user-friendly tool. My administrators and team also like its ability to customize the r...

See all answers

What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for F5 Advanced WAF?

The pricing for F5 Advanced WAF is a bit higher, but not that high. I would say for a good amount of revenue-generati...

See all answers

What needs improvement with F5 Advanced WAF?

On the features I wish existed, Big-IP Advanced WAF is primarily an on-premises solution and in that solution, there ...

See all answers

Comparisons

Fortinet FortiWeb vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 7% of the time

Check Point CloudGuard WAF vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 7% of the time

Azure Web Application Firewall vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 6% of the time

Radware Cloud WAF Service vs Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

Compared 5% of the time

More Cloudflare Web Application Firewall Competitors

SonarQube vs Aikido Security

Compared 11% of the time

Semgrep vs Aikido Security

Compared 8% of the time

Snyk vs Aikido Security

Compared 7% of the time

GitHub vs Aikido Security

Compared 5% of the time

GitHub Advanced Security vs Aikido Security

Compared 5% of the time

More Aikido Security Competitors

Fortinet FortiWeb vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 23% of the time

Imperva Application Security Platform vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 7% of the time

Microsoft Azure Application Gateway vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 5% of the time

AWS WAF vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 5% of the time

NetScaler vs F5 Advanced WAF

Compared 3% of the time

More F5 Advanced WAF Competitors

Product Reports

Buyer's Guide

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall

March 2026

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall report

Download Cloudflare Web Application Firewall product report

Buyer's Guide

Static Application Security Testing (SAST)

March 2026

Download Aikido Security product report

Buyer's Guide

F5 Advanced WAF

March 2026

Download F5 Advanced WAF product report

Also Known As

Cloudflare WAF

No data available

Overview

Cloudflare Web Application Firewall's intuitive dashboard enables users to build powerful rules through easy clicks and also provides Terraform integration. Every request to the WAF is inspected against the rule engine and the threat intelligence curated from protecting over 27 Million websites. Suspicious requests can be blocked, challenged or logged as per the needs of the user while legitimate requests are routed to the destination, agnostic of whether it lives on-premise or in the cloud. Analytics and Cloudflare Logs enable visibility into actionable metrics for the user.

Cloudflare

Aikido Security is the no-nonsense platform that empowers developers by centralizing code-to-cloud security issues and providing rapid guidance for fixing vulnerabilities.

With over 6,000 teams utilizing its features, Aikido Security prioritizes effective security management by consolidating 11 comprehensive scans into one platform. This approach translates complex vulnerabilities into understandable insights, targeting non-enterprise SaaS businesses with engineering teams of 10-500 developers. It focuses on delivering security management without excessive costs or complexity through a product-led growth model.

What are the standout features of Aikido Security?

SAST: Secures code as it is written.
DAST: Monitors surfaces, dynamically tests for vulnerabilities with OWASP ZAP.
IaC: Detects infrastructure vulnerabilities.
CSPM: Real-time detection of cloud infrastructure risks.
Container Scanning: Assesses container environments for risky packages.
Secrets Detection: Identifies exposed API keys, passwords.
Open Source Dependencies: Analyzes dependencies to avoid vulnerabilities.
Open Source License: Maps and exports SBOMs to manage license risks.
Malware Detection: Protects from supply chain attacks.
Runtime Protection: Secures apps with an embedded firewall.
Custom Scans: Integrates with existing tools like SonarQube.

Why should you consider Aikido Security?

Easy Adoption: Setup takes less than 3 minutes with clear UX.
Cost Efficiency: Offers a comprehensive 9-in-1 solution at competitive pricing.
Accurate Results: Best false positive reduction in the market.

In industries like software development and cloud services, Aikido Security is implemented to provide clear insights, enabling teams to focus on rapid product growth while maintaining robust security. Its product-led growth strategy, including a freemium offering, allows developers to experience benefits firsthand without initial investment.

Aikido Security

F5 Advanced WAF is a web application security solution for financial and government sectors, e-commerce, and public-facing websites. It offers protection against various attacks, including botnets, web scraping, and foreign entities. The solution can be deployed on-premises or in the cloud and is often used with other security tools. Its most valuable features include DDoS and DNS attack protection, SSL uploading, anomaly detection, and the ability to input custom rules.

F5 Advanced WAF has helped organizations to expose more services to the public while providing an extra layer of protection, preventing revenue loss, and securing connectivity.

Sample Customers

crunchbase, udacity, marketo, okcupid, zendesk

FinTech GoCardless ZIP CertifID HealthTech Dental Intelligence PE & Group Techstars Cronos Group Security Tech Human Security Tines HR Tech Simployer Recruitee Agency November Five Other Lighthouse (Hospitality Tech) Smokeball (LegalTech) Runna (B2C Tech) GEA Group (Manufacturing) Community fibre (Telecom) n8n (Software Development)

MAXIMUS, Vivo, American Systems, Bangladesh Post Office, City Bank

Buyer's Guide

Web Application Firewall (WAF)

March 2026

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